Let’s get all the sophomoric jokes out of the way. In this context, the “pocket rocket” moniker refers to an ultralight camp stove that is perfect for backcountry hunters, long-distance hikers, bug-out preppers, and anyone else who may need to cook a hot meal quickly while off the grid. The Pocket Rocket 2 is half the weight of the first version, and it can boil a quart of water in only three and a half minutes. Of course, you’ll need a fuel canister to provide the heat (isobutane-propane fuel canisters are designed to fit this stove, and they offer great temperature and altitude tolerance). Once the self-sealing fuel canister is screwed into place, using the stove is a breeze. The serrated pot-supports can hold a variety of pots and pans. The adjustable flame can go low to simmer food, high for a fast boil, or anywhere in between. You can even use it like a blowtorch to start a stubborn campfire. The stove also comes with a lightweight case for protection, and it easily packs down to store in your cookpot (or your pocket).

If you choose not to can or dehydrate your own foods, Emergency Essentials has all your bases covered, with a huge selection of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods to see you through in a crisis. We’ve got everything from whole grains to fruits and vegetables to premium meats, so you know you’re getting high-quality food that’s packaged and processed with your family’s needs in mind.
We stopped in a condo. Nine-foot ceilings, Wolf range, gas fireplace. “This guy wanted to have a fireplace from his home state”—Connecticut—“so he shipped me the granite,” Hall said. Another owner, with a home in Bermuda, ordered the walls of his bunker-condo painted in island pastels—orange, green, yellow—but, in close quarters, he found it oppressive. His decorator had to come fix it.
Let’s get all the sophomoric jokes out of the way. In this context, the “pocket rocket” moniker refers to an ultralight camp stove that is perfect for backcountry hunters, long-distance hikers, bug-out preppers, and anyone else who may need to cook a hot meal quickly while off the grid. The Pocket Rocket 2 is half the weight of the first version, and it can boil a quart of water in only three and a half minutes. Of course, you’ll need a fuel canister to provide the heat (isobutane-propane fuel canisters are designed to fit this stove, and they offer great temperature and altitude tolerance). Once the self-sealing fuel canister is screwed into place, using the stove is a breeze. The serrated pot-supports can hold a variety of pots and pans. The adjustable flame can go low to simmer food, high for a fast boil, or anywhere in between. You can even use it like a blowtorch to start a stubborn campfire. The stove also comes with a lightweight case for protection, and it easily packs down to store in your cookpot (or your pocket).
If the group became indifferent to Finelli’s leadership prior to his ouster, he became just as frustrated with their complacency. Preppers began ignoring his strict no cell phone rule. Few took concrete steps to be more prepared over the years, he says. He’d set out to develop independent thinkers, not apathetic disciples. “I mentioned to the group that at some point, Vinny may not be available,” Finelli says. “So be prepared at a moment’s notice.” That’s why he feels like he failed: He left the preppers unprepared.
Recently, I spoke on the phone with Tyler Allen, a real-estate developer in Lake Mary, Florida, who told me that he paid three million dollars for one of Hall’s condos. Allen said he worries that America faces a future of “social conflict” and government efforts to deceive the public. He suspects that the Ebola virus was allowed to enter the country in order to weaken the population. When I asked how friends usually respond to his ideas, he said, “The natural reaction that you get most of the time is for them to laugh, because it scares them.” But, he added, “my credibility has gone through the roof. Ten years ago, this just seemed crazy that all this was going to happen: the social unrest and the cultural divide in the country, the race-baiting and the hate-mongering.” I asked how he planned to get to Kansas from Florida in a crisis. “If a dirty bomb goes off in Miami, everybody’s going to go in their house and congregate in bars, just glued to the TV. Well, you’ve got forty-eight hours to get the hell out of there.”
Some evangelical Christians hold to an interpretation of Bible prophecy known as the post-tribulation rapture, in which the world will have to go through a seven-year period of war and global dictatorship known as the "Great Tribulation". Jim McKeever helped popularize survival preparations among this branch of evangelical Christians with his 1978 book Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation, and How To Prepare For It.
OK. Great. You've stockpiled for the end of the world, you quack. The chances of the world ending are smaller than ... holy crap, what the hell is a supervolcano? See why we're all doomed in 5 Ways The World Could End That You'd Never See Coming. And if that's not enough to get you to build your own bunker, check out 6 Tiny Mistakes That Almost Ended The World. Really, the planet almost ended due to a blown fuse? Come on humanity, let's get it together.
While media coverage has often focused on a certain gun-toting, masculine segment of the subculture, both women described being drawn to prepping as a form of female self-empowerment. As Bedford sees it, finding yourself unprepared in the midst of a crisis can be a “terrible feeling of weakness” for a mother. “It makes sense to be empowered and trained and have the right supplies—and in this case, to have extra food on hand—because as a mom in particular, your family just relies on you,” she said.

Auckland is a thirteen-hour flight from San Francisco. I arrived in early December, the beginning of New Zealand’s summer: blue skies, mid-seventies, no humidity. Top to bottom, the island chain runs roughly the distance between Maine and Florida, with half the population of New York City. Sheep outnumber people seven to one. In global rankings, New Zealand is in the top ten for democracy, clean government, and security. (Its last encounter with terrorism was in 1985, when French spies bombed a Greenpeace ship.) In a recent World Bank report, New Zealand had supplanted Singapore as the best country in the world to do business.

Doug Huffman is prepared, teaching techniques for surviving a second depression based upon America's massive debts.; Dianne and Greg Rogers, dedicated parents in Canada, are concerned with future events affecting their home-life; Ed and Dianna Peden ("still living in the 60's"), of Topeka, Kansas are preparing to survive fully underground in their decommissioned Atlas missile silo when doomsday arrives.

A quality hatchet can be a true lifesaver when it comes to building shelters and processing firewood in a wilderness survival setting. And it’s darn handy when you’re just camping in the local woods, too. Designed by Vietnam veteran Elmer Roush, the new CRKT Pack Axe is a tiny titan. Tipping the scales at a bantam weight of only 1.14 pounds, and less than a foot long, even the gram-conscious minimalists have to take notice. This beautifully built camp axe is made with 1060 carbon steel that is hot forged into very durable blade. It also has the bonus of a hammer poll (for pounding in stakes and such). Tennessee hickory is the wood of choice used for the hatchet handle, and it comes lacquer coated for a longer lifespan. If you’re looking for small axe that can tackle big jobs, check this one out. But don’t freak out when it arrives: it does not come with a sheath. You’ll have to provide your own. After all, it’s Columbia River Knife and Tool (CRKT), not Columbia River Knife and Tool and Leather Works (CRKTLW). I’m sure you needed to practice your leather work anyway. It should also be known that 10 percent of the profits on this tool go to the Green Beret Foundation. Way to go, CRKT!
When I visited Johnson, not long ago, at his office on Park Avenue South, he described himself as an accidental student of civic anxiety. He grew up outside Detroit, in Grosse Pointe Park, the son of a doctor, and he watched his father’s generation experience the fracturing of Detroit. “What I’m seeing now in New York City is sort of like old music coming back,” he said. “These are friends of mine. I used to live in Belle Haven, in Greenwich, Connecticut. Louis Bacon, Paul Tudor Jones, and Ray Dalio”—hedge-fund managers—“were all within fifty yards of me. From my own career, I would just talk to people. More and more were saying, ‘You’ve got to have a private plane. You have to assure that the pilot’s family will be taken care of, too. They have to be on the plane.’ ”

No one thinks they’re going to be trapped by whiteout conditions or separated from their group as night falls but it happens with alarming regularity. Don’t make things worse by being unprepared. These advanced Mylar blankets cost less than 4 bucks each and weigh virtually nothing and yet can and do save lives. They’re waterproof, tear-resistant survival gear that comes in a pack of 5. As such there’s no excuse for not having them tucked away in your backpack or daypack when you set out. The very definition of essential survival gear for outdoorsmen of all stripes.

We all know Zippo for their classic lighters, but that isn’t their only fire-starting product. In recent years, Zippo has introduced a number of survival supplies and they continue to refine their product line. Their new Emergency Fire Kit is a major upgrade from their older “lighter-shaped” fire kit. This water-resistant tube is made from tough ABS plastic, making the kit durable while keeping it light enough to float in water. The EFK features the same trusty Zippo flint wheel that is made in the USA for their lighters. It’s even replaceable, though you’d probably never have to swap it out. The flint wheel is rated for 1,700 sparks. The kit also comes with five wax-soaked tinder tabs that burn for five minutes each. These tabs will catch a spark, wet or dry, after shredding the end to expose a few fibers. You can also use the hole in the tinder to place it on a stick (easier to insert into a fire lay or move around). If you do happen to burn up all of your tinder tabs (during practice, which I would recommend), they are replaceable as well.

Without the right footwear you’re putting yourself at a huge disadvantage when you’re out in the wild. Blisters, trench foot and even frostbite can result from depending on poor quality footwear when the going gets tough. The Irish Setter 8” Waterproof Hunting boots are actually for anyone who cares about retaining comfort, warmth and outstanding traction regardless of conditions. The boots employ RPM technology that brings the weight down and the warmth up. The boot also employs the company’s innovative waterproofing methods that ensure your feet stay dry so you can concentrate on other things. True survival gear for your feet.
Amid the localized terror, trains will deliver the nation’s hapless coastal residents to our doorstep. Pense thinks it’ll look like the Holocaust, that the government will deposit boxcars of starving New Yorkers and Californians into the suddenly crowded Heartland. Then they’ll go back for more. It’s going to be, Pense says, some interesting times.
One major upside of freeze-dried food is its convenience. Since all its water content has been removed—via a process that involves exposing food to subzero temperatures, while removing the resulting water vapor with a vacuum—it’s easier than canned goods to transport on the fly. To “cook” Wise Company’s six-grain Apple Cinnamon Cereal, you just boil three and a half cups of water, dump in the powdery contents of the bag (minus the oxygen absorber), and cover the pot for 12 to 15 minutes.

We get that creature comforts will be ever more important as the things that used to make us happy slowly break and crumble around us. But do you really want to put a ton of effort into opening a bakery when everything is going to shit? And we hate to be the bearers of bad news, but no amount of odor elimination is going to stop the uncivilized world from smelling really, really bad.

What’s on the list depends on which faction of preparedness you practice, pre-Y2K prepper and Seventh-day Adventist Church pastor Craig Wiles tells me. There are preppers, who anticipate an event like an ice storm or an EMP; there are survivalists, who arm themselves to face an enemy like a tyrannical government; and there are homesteaders, who grow their own food and practice self-sufficiency.
These days, when North Korea tests a bomb, Hall can expect an uptick of phone inquiries about space in the Survival Condo Project. But he points to a deeper source of demand. “Seventy per cent of the country doesn’t like the direction that things are going,” he said. After dinner, Hall and Menosky gave me a tour. The complex is a tall cylinder that resembles a corncob. Some levels are dedicated to private apartments and others offer shared amenities: a seventy-five-foot-long pool, a rock-climbing wall, an Astro-Turf “pet park,” a classroom with a line of Mac desktops, a gym, a movie theatre, and a library. It felt compact but not claustrophobic. We visited an armory packed with guns and ammo in case of an attack by non-members, and then a bare-walled room with a toilet. “We can lock people up and give them an adult time-out,” he said. In general, the rules are set by a condo association, which can vote to amend them. During a crisis, a “life-or-death situation,” Hall said, each adult would be required to work for four hours a day, and would not be allowed to leave without permission. “There’s controlled access in and out, and it’s governed by the board,” he said.
If you’re ordeal is an extended one you can lash the Ultimate Pro Knife to a small branch to create a spear for catching fish or small mammals. The pommel at the butt end can be used to hammer tent stakes and that little thing hanging from the lanyard cord is a powerful emergency whistle that can take over emergency signaling duties from the tactical flashlight or your long range walkie talkies when the sun comes up. A top-notch knife like this is essential survival gear.
There are two scenarios everyone—prepper or not—should count on: losing power and being stranded in your car. I’m a big believer in backup power. I keep an emergency power supply plugged into an outlet in my apartment; it has a trickle charger so I can forget about it until my block goes dark. In my car, I keep extra blankets, a LifeStraw portable water filter, lighters, and Millennium energy bars. It’s not the Four Seasons, but at least my family will be able to survive 48 hours in our Honda Pilot. One thing to consider: You need to be with your gear when a disaster strikes. When Sandy hit in 2012, our whole family was in Connecticut while all my gear was in Manhattan. My wife had a good laugh. These days, my everyday bag is a waterproof Showers Pass backpack where I stash a small set of screwdrivers, multitool, glass breaker, three flashlights that use the same type of batteries, and a spool of Kevlar thread, all sorted in plastic bags. There’s a spoon and fork in there, too, because if I have to eat an MRE for dinner, I might as well look civilized while I do it.—Wylie Dufresne, Michelin-starred Chef, Owner Of Du’s Donuts, Prepper